I'm sure I, and a lot if others, would be very interested on your insights into the high profile perceived (many of which are actual) errors that Onana has made this season, especially in the Champions League.
It would be great to get a more professional view on his general ability, qualities, or lack thereof.
Alright feels like a good time to follow-up on your ask here. The short version is that I don’t think he played the first goal well and I’ll expand on why. The second goal he’s played fine and so I won’t expand on that.
In-swinging set pieces from the wide areas were one of my biggest weaknesses personally so I watched a lot of tape. Three things I’ll call out here:
1. Although Onana could have done better (I’ll get to why I think this shorty), the delivery was good. Not perfect, but good. He got solid pace on it, put a lot of shape on it, high enough to beat the first man, and kept it inside the far post. The noticeable shortcoming of the delivery was that it wasn’t particularly flat. Therefore, it was above head height for players at the near post. But it was a good delivery.
2. When an in-swinging FK delivery is good across those dimensions, the keeper must make choices. I’ll oversimplify here to the options we all know - come for the cross (claim/punch), cover the players, or cover the cross (far post). You can’t do all three obviously - you must pick. Again, that is a slight oversimplification but it applies well here because of the distance between the attacking players and the back post. Each option is prone to looking bad if you choose wrong. But, there are right/wrong choices that are situational based on your reading of the players and the ball’s flight.
3. In this particular situation, Onana chose the middle option - to position himself for a reflex save if an attacking player got a touch on the cross. Even though no player touched it, his read was certainly correct that an attacking player could get a touch and so I understand why he did not shift further toward his back-post to cover the cross. However, I personally think he should have attempted to come and claim/punch at the front post. Again, the reason I think this is because of the ball’s height at the front post. If the ball is over the heads of the attackers at the front post, that usually presents an opportunity to claim - in this case, about 5 yards out. Flatter crosses pose a trickier front-post claim because the glancing header just ahead of you is on, which is usually when you hear commentators announcing the keeper reaching ’nowhere near’ or ‘grasping thin air’ etc.
One other point- something that’s rarely expanded upon is the impact of player density. If a winger cuts back and delivers an identical in-swinging cross during open play, that is a far easier ball to claim than from a set piece. During a set piece, the density of players in a concentrated area of the 6-yard box poses a very different proposition for a keeper coming off the line - but we often view these situations identically if the delivery looks the same. I’d rather come and claim in open play in almost every situation. I say all of that to share that, in this situation (this FK position + delivery), if no defender gets a head to the ball then any choice Onana makes poses a risk.
So that’s my take - I think he played it wrong and that the best choice here was to attempt to claim near post.
